How to work remotely as a software developer

I really enjoyed this article, and I'd like to add that software developers working remotely could probably learn a lot from the wisdom of writers, which has been collected in hundreds of articles on the web. (search for "advice from best authors" or "daily routines of great writers", etc, and you're bound to find many such articles. Some are good, most are puffery, but so it goes with anything).

Not all of the advice applies, of course, but there's a lot of good advice on making a good workspace and keeping yourself motivated. I've certainly noticed after working alone that there's a lot of implicit encouragement merely from working near other people, and this makes working at home harder than the same work might otherwise be. That's part of the reason why many prefer to work from cafes or worker/hacker-spaces, I think. Motivation is contagious.

(The positive flip side is that working from home removes a certain set of distractions that might otherwise be bothersome, and gives you more fine-grained control over the distractions you have in general).

Lots of authors use funny setups to transition from home-mode to work-mode. Some people build extra doors in their house so they can "leave" their house and "enter" an office that is sealed off from their house, but is otherwise the same building. One author (Roald Dahl?) worked from a bunker.

That being said, its probably a bad idea to get hung up on the idea of perfect working-from-home conditions. Per E. B. White:

"A writer who waits for ideal conditions under which to work will die without putting a word on paper."

Some similar important words from Tchaikovsky, which I found especially relevant to working from home:

Do not believe those who try to persuade you that composition is only a cold exercise of the intellect. The only music capable of moving and touching us is that which flows from the depths of a composer’s soul when he is stirred by inspiration. There is no doubt that even the greatest musical geniuses have sometimes worked without inspiration. This guest does not always respond to the first invitation. We must always work, and a self-respecting artist must not fold his hands on the pretext that he is not in the mood. If we wait for the mood, without endeavouring to meet it half-way, we easily become indolent and apathetic. We must be patient, and believe that inspiration will come to those who can master their disinclination.

I think motivation is under-stated in its importance when it comes to working from home. Even if our work demands little distraction, we're social creatures, and we've probably all had days where its hard to even open up the editor.

It's important to stay positive and stay at it. As Joel said, "We just have to come in every morning and somehow, launch the editor."[1]

[1] http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000339.html

I worked alone from a home office for 20 years in my consulting practice until, in the last year, as my company has grown, I've moved to commercial office space for the first time. I found working at home a delight, and enjoyed many years of jokes about my short commute (18 feet.) However, in the end, I found the repeated advice of friends to be correct: I'm more productive with an outside office. The extra focus more than offsets the cost of rent. Being in commercial office space has also made it easier to meet with clients. It's also more social as there are other people at the office that I can talk to (or ignore) as needed.

My commute is still short (I often do it on a Segway), and our company is still virtual (with both staff and contractors working from their own spaces -- which we don't plan to change), but don't underestimate the value of a separate, outside, workspace.

The only thing that I have grown to despise a bit is timeboxing. Coding is a job and a hobby to me, and sometimes setting those hard limits kills my ability to improve code by forcing me into a rigid schedule. It turns what I view as play into unpleasant work, and that's how burnout starts.

Sometimes its faster to come up with a solution without setting hard time limits, and just let your mind churn passively on a concept. I've always found a certain amount of anxiety associated with feeling like I have to complete a task in a predetermined amount of time.

You should always have (and try to meet) deadlines, but the micromanagement of 25 mins per hour (example from the article) is just stressful.

A man is a fool not to put everything he has, at any given moment, into what he is creating. You're there now doing the thing on paper. You're not killing the goose, you're just producing an egg. So I don't worry about inspiration, or anything like that. It's a matter of just sitting down and working. I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing. for example. or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, 'Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write.' There's no difference on paper between the two.

--Frank Herbert

I agree with you 100% on the 25 minutes per hour being too short. Personally, (as I said in the article) 1 hour works better for me. Not too short, not too long.

edit: woops, I meant 25 minutes per block!